I would like to share my experience with the Oculus Rift virtual reality gaming headset. If you haven't tried it yet it's an all new dimension in gaming and it's like 3D on steroids. It has a full 360 degree view, up, down, both sides and behind you is all filled with scenery and it's as if you are in the scene.

Setting up the Oculus Rift isn't difficult, it has step by step instructions on screen which are easy to follow and lets you know everything is connected, I had it setup and watching some of the included content in about 30 minutes. Some of the included content had me standing on top of a high rise building looking down, I'm scared of heights and it looked so real I was about to grab something to hold on to. Another part was a tyrannosaurus rex walking towards me down a hallway, he stopped in front of me so I could get a good look then stepped over me, I put my arms up because I thought I was about to get crushed, yes it looks that real.

It comes with a few free games, apps, entertainment and a movie scene Senza Peso where you ride in a canoe, at one point there were comets flying over that left trails of billowing smoke all around me, I was literally sniffing the air to smell the smoke.

In the box is the oculus rift headset, a stand alone receiver for tracking head movement, a wireless xbox controller, a wireless usb receiver, a wireless remote control, two oculus stickers, an instruction book, a lens cleaning cloth and all the necessary usb cables. The headset earphones are high quality and sounds just as good as a movie theater if not better.

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Since a friend loaned me his oculus rift while he is on vacation I only have a limited amount of time with it but what I've found is you need to have games that support virtual reality, so unfortunately my experience is limited to the content that comes with the oculus rift but what does come with it is simply amazing, I can imagine playing an action game in virtual reality would be nothing more than mind blowing.

You can play all your steam games with the oculus rift, just install Steam VR and you're playing them on a movie theater screen. You can adjust the theater screen small, medium, large and to flat or curved which I think is cool, while playing your game just look down at the screen sizes and it changes automatically, no buttons to push.

Steam games play on your monitor and the oculus rift which is more taxing, minimum requirements is a gtx 970 but a 980 Ti or a 1070 will do much better. You can purchase vporX to play games in stereo 3d on the big theater screen, here is a list of games that are supported.

http://www.vorpx.com/supported-games/

The headset has plenty of adjustments to customize for a perfect fit, it's not heavy and is comfortable to wear. For what I've got to see that supports VR it's truly incredible, I was playing one of the free VR games Dragon Front with the remote control, you navigate by moving your head instead of a mouse then select with the remote. It's a whole new way of playing a game and it feels much more immersive, it was as if I was sitting or standing on top of a castle controlling the soldiers below with a full 360 degree view.

I could go on and on about how awesome VR is but me talking about it really doesn't do it justice, you need to experience it first hand and see it for yourself to see how immersive it truly is. Most gamers like me will be wowed and you may end up having to pick your jaw up off the floor like I did.

There are quite a few free VR players you can download to watch videos and movies in VR, here are a few. Do note the videos and movies must support VR.

http://www.videoconverterfactory.com/tips/vr-video-player.html

Oculus will soon bring their own VR to the web with React VR and Carmel.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/06/oculus-webvr/

How the Oculus Rift works

The Oculus Rift has a pair of screens that displays two images side by side, one for each eye. A lense is placed on top of each panel focusing and reshaping the picture for each eye creating a stereoscopic 3D image. The headset has embedded sensors that monitor the wearer's head movement and adjusts the image accordingly, the result is the sensation you are looking around in a 3d world.

The specs include a 2160 x 1200 OLED display which delivers 1080p per eye, a 110 degree field of view with a 90Hz refresh rate. It has a built in accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and 360 degree positional tracking that follows six axes of movement with a latency of about 30 milliseconds which didn't affect my gameplay at all and was quite responsive.

The more I play with it the more things I'm finding you can do with it, the oculus rift can also be used as a pc monitor. I installed Bigscreen Beta from Steam which is free, there are 21 environments to choose from all with either a big theater screen and pc monitor with the pc monitor being customizable. You can do everything with the oculus rift as you can a pc monitor, the only thing is you can't see the keyboard but if you know your way around a keyboard it isn't a problem.

Here is one of the VR demos Senza Peso I mentioned, it shows in two images and is nothing like wearing the headset but you can see it has a full 360 degree view as I look around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXI-XO--pI&feature=youtu.be

While VR is still fairly new I can't help but feel excited about the future of VR, it has taken entertainment to a whole new level. Anyone who has experienced VR knows that being fully immersed in a virtual world is much different than looking at a 2D image. This concept of full immersion transforms the way you view movies, video games and other attractions such as theme parks which are now using VR headsets to enhance ride experiences.

VR is not just for gaming and entertainment, it also has the capability to change the way children are educated and can increase human empathy, imagine putting on a VR headset and experiencing life in a small village in a third world country. It gives you the ability to walk in another person's shoes from a different culture and how they live on a daily basis.

The only con I have is it looks a little grainy like looking through the screen of a screen door but once you overlook this it's great.

If you have a VR gaming unit I'd like to hear your thoughts, opinions, what games you play and how you use your VR headset.

FonzieBulldog

10-31-2016, 12:52 PM

As i mentioned in the earlier thread https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?88368-Responce-to-thread-quot-Virtual-Reality-Gaming-with-Oculus-Rift-quot i have tried out HTC Vive and the Playstation VR and by this date i aint so sure anymore who is the winner.The HTC Vive have a really good picture but demands a good computer to run this hardware who makes the cost run away further.On top of this HTC Vive often needs some major software updates who sometimes fail and there you have to search for the fault on your own and hope to find a solution to make this expensive system to work.The Playstation VR headset on the other hand is much nicer to wear but the picture couldnt compare with HTC Vive but if the Playstation PRO makes this VR picture better i guess that both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have to come up with some fast solutions to keep up in this VR market when you dont need any master degree to plug in your Playstation VR system and make it work.I am not for or against any of these VR systems when they both have there good and bad sides and often find myself wearing one of them and playing along without thinking all to much about how the specifications on these different systems work but sometimes for sure wonder how Playstation VR manage to do what it actually does when its power is far less that my HTC Vive demands.Probably return after the Playstation PRO is released to make my final judgement on who is the winner in this gaming corner of the world.

This is a great topic and thanks for sharing information on the Oculus Rift, would be awesome if we can get more people to chime on this and share their experiences with VR so far.

Xero96win

11-06-2016, 03:12 PM

you sir....have a knack for reviewing gadgets...i found your post really fun to read..kudos:D:D

FonzieBulldog

11-08-2016, 02:42 PM

Two important event this week.The USA president election and the Playstation 4 PRO release the 10/11/16.But while the rest of the world always talks about Trump and Hillary i focus on the Playstation 4 PRO.Will it get the picture smother and more detailed in PS-VR !?.In fact this is the first time in the Playstation history that they have released an hardware updated version of a previous model.Its still called Playstation 4 but it aint in the same time when the frames and memory is far better than the earlier PS4.And Playstation wont call it PS 5 when this already is dedicated to the upcoming model of course.Well, i call it Playstation 4 1/2 when this updated version probably will bring some truth to what PS-VR is capable of when it get more of the right hardware.

Tested out HTC Vive and the Big Screen app and start to understand how this HTC Vive hardware/software works when it sometimes fail and you by the time that goes learn more and more of how to evade the software traps in this VR.Big Screen is a movie theater who you could bring up in space or in a old fashion movie theater and many more places.I prefer the old movie theater when it reminds me of how it used to be in those years before internet and the streaming all across the globe invaded our minds.The Big Screen is open or closed for public by your own choice and wile i was watching WestWorld there was people coming and going.Maybe because i had no transmitting sound software installed (LOL) for this Big Screen app.Took me a while to understand that before one in the public directed me to the right sound software download page, (Big thanks for that).

Anyway, i am running one of the computers with a MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X with a I7-6700k and the picture is really great in this Big Screen theater mode and that makes me stay as long as the movie last without getting irritated by for instance bad frame rates.In other word i give this Big Screen app thumbs up when i really enjoy sitting in a dark old fashioned movie theater with soft lights around me just enjoying the movie on this new technology when it works as it was supposed to and there this further on brings a BIG smile to my face.

Well, have to wait and see if PS-VR could compare to this HTC Vive with the new PS4 PRO.Strange things have happened before in this technology but i will probably be rather surprised if it did when it probably is more of a play along console as it was supposed to be in the first place.And thats good as long as it goes.

As the PC and console gamer i now am since many years back, it was probably just a question of time before the new Playstation 4 Pro showed up inside my home as it did already on launch day when i simply had to see if Playstations VR systems got better with this PRO version which has twice as much power as the earlier PlayStation 4 edition.

Indeed, it had much better resolution in games and over all a better picture there many of the little hazy outlines in some gaming environments was gone depending on where you looked in this VR enviroment.Playstation 4 Pro reminds now even more of a PC in its design with the graphics card, processor , motherboard and cooling fan, etc, even if the Playstation 4 Pro still is running with a integrated processor on the motherboard which then makes it impossible to update if you would like to for some reason.

But never mind that when the PlayStation 4 Pro is an absolutely excellent game console, and should have received an unprecedented title than just the Playstation 4 when it is so much better than the previous version in most areas.This got both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift more in the competitive position but when these VR systems with their computers and consoles makes the work in totally different ways there is no clear winner in this VR category when HTC Vive and Playstation VR with the right computer or console both are winners but in completely different ways when HTC Vive has many good areas like gaming and watching movies with a good graphics card and processor shown in these HTC Vive glasses with a picture fluency and clarity that the PlayStation 4 Pro probably not will reach for a long time while the Playstation VR is a considerably easier systems to use and which only is updated sometime now and then completely painless via PlayStation's automatic updates when it actually performs like a computer VR and you sometimes wonder how when its power is much less where it still stubbornly show the opposite in my eyes with this Playstation VR systems.

No winner and no looser for that matter in other words, with these totally different VR systems and I do hardly wonder much if it is the HTC Vive or Playstation VR who is sitting in front of my eyes when the VR world easily makes one forget all the talk about which system that is best in this in pure procent.Long live the VR system and with that, Over and out.

The original post and not the Google translated version : http://fonziebulldog.blogspot.com/

Start screen in Robinson The Journey VR on Playstation 4 Pro.Hard to show the real truth behind VR when you look at it on a flat YouTube screen but with some imagination in a 360 degree gaming world around you it probably gets easier.When there have been some problems with the PS cameras tracking device i could tell you that the second generation of this PS camera handles this much better but still couldn't compare with for instance the HTC Vive who have two of these cameras placed on different sides in the room to track your headset.Maybe its a software thing to update for Sony.The heat exhaust from the Playstation 4 Pro could be massive under heavy load so be sure that you have a free space behind this otherwise quiet fan to let it breath when it needs it.Thats it and have a nice VR day. :)

The Oculus rift is being used to do far more applications (NASA/Military) then just to play PC games. VR gaming is in its pre-alpha stage, so you wont know and real winner for 5 years or so. I wouldn't say you need an "master degree" to get it up in running. Its far more difficult for normal users to get Crossfire/SLI to run/work correctly in games. If PSVR is a success you can be guaranteed Sony will make new models of PSVR. Those new models will have games just optimized for that, requiring old model users to upgrade to play those titles in VR. Or the PSVR will turn into an Nintendo Virtual Boy and collect dust.

FonzieBulldog

11-18-2016, 02:27 PM

The hard thing to do if you should try to divide HTC Vive and Playstation VR is that they are good in sometimes different things there PS have great VR games by its release date and HTC Vive have a GREAT picture with a good GPU and CPU who makes you wonder if it is the reality you are looking at in a distant sometimes magic VR world.Something PS VR wont reach up to even if you often forget this while you play games.And of course, the upcoming wireless HTC Vive upgrade http://www.roadtovr.com/wireless-htc-vive-tpcast-kit-global-orders-details-specs/ Gaming for an old PC / Console gamer has been fun again with this new VR.

Thats odd.One friend was over late last night to test out the HTC Vive and Playstation VR.She has some form of bigger glasses and there was some problems to make it work with these glasses when the headsets didnt fit properly to the face and actually i aint sure if she could see this VR world as she was supposed to do when these glasses obviously was destroying some of this VR world look.But when you read at the developers page HTC Vive and Playstation VR they say that different forms of glasses aint a problem when playing VR !?.Buy contact lenses babe or are people and dogs with glasses left outside this VR world !?.

@Nate - that's a lot of extra good information you added, it's very cool. I haven't had the chance to experience VR yet like the way you have, I just demoed it during one of the exhibitions for about 5-10mins. Thanks a lot for sharing!

FonzieBulldog

11-24-2016, 10:06 AM

Some end scenes from Robinson The Journey (Spoiler Alert).Great PS VR game but sadly all to short for the money.

Final end scene from Robinson The Journey.Not the best game i played but one of these games who caught my attention in just being there in the game.Maybe its the VR feeling.Couldnt really tell if thats the case.Anyway, a nice but rather short story.

Here is a little video of how the screen size and distance works in Bigscreen Beta, the small screen is adjustable the big screen is not. I'm not able to go full screen with the camera but it has a nice size window, all environments have a full 360 degree view with the oculus rift.

It's recording what's showing on my monitor.

In the football room the one guy must have oculus touch, you can see him moving his screen and changing the size with virtual hands, I don't know what he has at the end but it looks like maybe an iphone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t69-0Y3WV4g

FonzieBulldog

11-24-2016, 08:51 PM

Yes, Big Screen is a nice VR app Nate152 and i remember the first time i was watching a movie from the computer with Big Screen and there suddenly was an audience in the old theater when i had the public mode on.Talked about this with another computer friend/nerd and now we are wondering if this isnt file sharing in a rather new VR way.

Nate152

11-27-2016, 10:25 AM

Here is a look at Dragon Front which is free at the Oculus store. Look around to move the white dot and select with the remote.